Part 10

I rose and neared the window-glass, But vanished thence had she: Only a pallid moth, alas, Tapped at the pane for me.

August 1913.

THE WOUND

I CLIMBED to the crest, And, fog-festooned, The sun lay west Like a crimson wound:

Like that wound of mine Of which none knew, For I’d given no sign That it pierced me through.

A MERRYMAKING IN QUESTION

“I WILL get a new string for my fiddle, And call to the neighbours to come, And partners shall dance down the middle Until the old pewter-wares hum: And we’ll sip the mead, cyder, and rum!”

From the night came the oddest of answers: A hollow wind, like a bassoon, And headstones all ranged up as dancers, And cypresses droning a croon, And gurgoyles that mouthed to the tune.

“I SAID AND SANG HER EXCELLENCE” (Fickle Lover’s Song)

I SAID and sang her excellence: They called it laud undue. (Have your way, my heart, O!) Yet what was homage far above The plain deserts of my olden Love Proved verity of my new.

“She moves a sylph in picture-land, Where nothing frosts the air:” (Have your way, my heart, O!) “To all winged pipers overhead She is known by shape and song,” I said, Conscious of licence there.

I sang of her in a dim old hall Dream-built too fancifully, (Have your way, my heart, O!) But lo, the ripe months chanced to lead My feet to such a hall indeed, Where stood the very She.

Strange, startling, was it then to learn I had glanced down unborn time, (Have your way, my heart, O!) And prophesied, whereby I knew That which the years had planned to do In warranty of my rhyme.

BY RUSHY-POND.

A JANUARY NIGHT (1879)

THE rain smites more and more, The east wind snarls and sneezes; Through the joints of the quivering door The water wheezes.

The tip of each ivy-shoot Writhes on its neighbour’s face; There is some hid dread afoot That we cannot trace.

Is it the spirit astray Of the man at the house below Whose coffin they took in to-day? We do not know.

A KISS

BY a wall the stranger now calls his, Was born of old a particular kiss, Without forethought in its genesis; Which in a trice took wing on the air. And where that spot is nothing shows: There ivy calmly grows, And no one knows What a birth was there!

That kiss is gone where none can tell— Not even those who felt its spell: It cannot have died; that know we well. Somewhere it pursues its flight, One of a long procession of sounds Travelling aethereal rounds Far from earth’s bounds In the infinite.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT

THEY came, the brothers, and took two chairs In their usual quiet way; And for a time we did not think They had much to say.

And they began and talked awhile Of ordinary things, Till spread that silence in the room A pent thought brings.

And then they said: “The end has come. Yes: it has come at last.” And we looked down, and knew that day A spirit had passed.

THE OXEN

CHRISTMAS EVE, and twelve of the clock. “Now they are all on their knees,” An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then.